COLUMN: Lebanon, Hezbollah, Iran — a peace on paper that bleeds every single day

COLUMN: Lebanon, Hezbollah, Iran — a peace on paper that bleeds every single day

Introduction: The ceasefire that will not cease

An American agreement that does not control the ground

The agreement negotiated by the United States called for a complete halt to military operations in Lebanon. A technical framework, a deconfliction cell involving Washington, Tehran, and Beirut, mediators from Qatar and Pakistan to guarantee implementation. On paper, it was a sophisticated peace architecture. On the streets of southern Lebanon, in the suburbs of Beirut, on the hills overlooking Israel, that architecture simply does not exist.

Hezbollah has not disarmed. Israel has not withdrawn all of its forward positions. Border incidents continue. Iran, operating as a discreet but omnipresent background player, agreed to negotiate in Switzerland with the Americans under Pakistani-Qatari mediation — and the framework agreement of June 22, 2026 explicitly provides for a deconfliction cell for Lebanon. But between an agreement struck in Lucerne and the reality on the ground in Lebanon, there is an abyss that no diplomatic communiqué can bridge.

The June 2026 memorandum of understanding and its ambiguities

The memorandum signed during the week of June 16, 2026 between Washington and Tehran — under the auspices of Qatar and Pakistan — explicitly calls for the reopening of the Strait of Hormuz and an end to all hostilities, "in particular in Lebanon." That wording is significant: it implicitly acknowledges that the fighting between Israel and Hezbollah represents the most volatile variable in the regional dossier.

But the memorandum is also riddled with ambiguities. Iran is not Hezbollah. Tehran can sign deconfliction agreements while maintaining its logistical support to its Lebanese proxy — all the more so because Hezbollah has its own strategic interests, its own chain of command, and a local political legitimacy in Lebanon that grants it genuine autonomy from its Iranian patrons. What Washington negotiates with Tehran does not automatically bind Hassan Nasrallah or his successors.

Hezbollah after the war: weakened, but not eliminated

An organization that suffered heavy losses but is rebuilding its capabilities

Hezbollah sustained significant losses since the intensification of Israeli operations in 2024–2025. The deaths of several senior commanders, the destruction of key parts of its military infrastructure in southern Lebanon, and the weakening of its funding networks through sanctions and targeted strikes have reduced its short-term operational capacity. But the organization has existed since 1982. It has survived wars, assassinations, and sanctions. The institutional resurrection of Hezbollah is not a hypothesis — it is a recurring historical fact.

Reports from Western intelligence services indicate that Hezbollah continues to receive weapons through smuggling routes that neither the American-Iranian agreement nor UNIFIL forces can effectively block. The Syrian-Lebanese border remains a partially operational supply corridor despite military pressure. The idea that Hezbollah's disarmament could result from a diplomatic agreement between external great powers is, for now, a comforting fiction.

The question of Lebanese political legitimacy

Hezbollah is an army, but it is also a political party that participates in the Lebanese government, manages social assistance networks, runs hospitals and schools. Its roots in the Lebanese Shiite community give it a legitimacy that international diplomatic agreements cannot simply erase by decree. Any lasting solution to the Hezbollah problem must pass through internal Lebanese political transformation — a process infinitely longer and more complex than signing a memorandum of understanding in Geneva.

Lebanon itself is a fractured nation whose confessional political system guarantees Hezbollah permanent institutional representation. The Lebanese government has neither the capacity nor, to a large degree, the political will to unilaterally disarm the country's most powerful organization. This is an uncomfortable fact that Western diplomats tend to omit from their enthusiastic press releases.

Israel and the red lines that keep moving

A military policy that ignores agreements

Israel has its own reasons for not fully respecting the terms of the ceasefire. Its security doctrine requires it to maintain a strategic depth in southern Lebanon as long as Hezbollah retains attack capabilities. Israeli preventive strikes against weapons depots or Hezbollah positions perceived as threatening have continued after successive agreements. For Tel Aviv, the American-Iranian agreement at Lucerne does not change the operational assessment of immediate threats. It may shift regional diplomacy, but it does not disarm Hassan Nasrallah.

American pressure on Israel to respect the terms of the Lebanese ceasefire is real but limited. Washington, engaged in a delicate negotiation with Tehran over the nuclear program, cannot afford to alienate Tel Aviv to the point of rupturing the American-Israeli strategic consensus. This diplomatic constraint leaves Israel significant room to maintain its operations on Lebanese territory, invoking self-defense, despite the agreements.

The deconfliction cell: a mechanism without teeth

The United States-Iran-Lebanon deconfliction cell established by the June 22, 2026 agreement is a technical communication mechanism. It allows parties to signal incidents, coordinate withdrawals, prevent accidental escalations. This is useful in theory. But a deconfliction mechanism does not disarm actors, does not change their strategic interests, and cannot force compliance from a non-state actor like Hezbollah that is not a party to the agreement.

Historical precedent is instructive: UNIFIL has been present in Lebanon since 1978. In forty-eight years of presence, it has not prevented a single major war. International monitoring mechanisms in Lebanon have genuine observational capacity and near-zero enforcement capacity. The American-Iranian deconfliction cell fits squarely in that tradition of surveillance without real coercive power.

Iran in the background: negotiator in Switzerland, arms supplier in Lebanon

The dual logic of Tehran

Tehran is simultaneously pursuing two apparently contradictory policies. On one side, it is negotiating seriously with Washington in Switzerland, under Qatari-Pakistani mediation, to secure sanctions relief, the reopening of the Strait of Hormuz, and possibly an agreement constraining its nuclear program. On the other, it is maintaining its regional proxy network — Hezbollah in Lebanon, the Houthis in Yemen, Shiite militias in Iraq — as geopolitical pressure instruments.

These two policies are not contradictory for Tehran: they are complementary. The proxy network is precisely what gives Iran its negotiating value with Washington. If Tehran agreed to neutralize Hezbollah before signing a nuclear deal, it would lose its main point of leverage. Iranian logic is cynical but coherent: keep Hezbollah as an active threat until American concessions are significant enough to justify its progressive disarmament.

The nuclear agreement and the ballistic program question

The Lucerne negotiation framework includes discussions on Iran's nuclear program, sanctions, and the hostilities in Lebanon. But the public terms of the agreement are deliberately vague on Iran's ballistic program. The United States reportedly dropped its demand for limits on Iranian missiles — which was one of the major criticisms leveled at the 2015 JCPOA. If this information is confirmed, it means Israel continues to face an unconstrained Iranian ballistic threat even if a nuclear deal is signed. And Hezbollah, armed with Iranian missiles, remains a direct, unaddressed threat.

The implications for Lebanon are direct: as long as Iran's ballistic program is unconstrained, Hezbollah can continue to be rearmed with precision missiles. The Lebanese deconfliction agreement is therefore not just incomplete — it is structurally insufficient to address the fundamental threat posed by an organization armed by a state that is not party to the Lebanese ceasefire.

What a peace on paper means for Lebanese civilians

Caught between two fires for forty years

Lebanese civilians have lived between two fires since 1975. They survived the civil war, Israeli invasions in 1978, 1982, and 2006, bombardments, political assassinations, Syrian occupation, explosions — including the Beirut port explosion of 2020. They have developed a resilience that borders on the miraculous and a distrust of international agreements that amounts to practical wisdom. The Lebanese people know better than anyone what an announced peace is worth.

For residents of southern Lebanon, where the fighting between Hezbollah and Israel is concentrated, the Lucerne agreement has not changed daily living conditions. Displaced persons have not all returned. Destroyed infrastructure is not being rebuilt. International aid trickles in through an economy that was already in crisis before the recent hostilities. A peace on paper does not rebuild homes.

The humanitarian emergency that disappears from agendas

When a diplomatic agreement is announced, media and political attention shifts to the negotiated successes. The persistent humanitarian crisis — displaced persons, the wounded, destroyed infrastructure — disappears from front pages. For Lebanon, this cycle is familiar and destructive. Each fragile agreement is followed by interrupted reconstruction, incomplete return of displaced persons, an economy restarting on unstable foundations — until the next cycle of violence.

The international community must maintain sustained pressure not only on ceasefire compliance, but also on Lebanon's economic and social reconstruction. Without a Marshall Plan for Beirut and southern Lebanon, every peace agreement is a hollow promise that sets up the next conflict.

Hezbollah in 2026: weakened organization, intact ideology

The military balance sheet of the war with Israel

The autumn 2024 war between Israel and Hezbollah inflicted significant losses on the Lebanese organization. Thousands of fighters killed, senior commanders eliminated — including Hassan Nasrallah himself in the strike of September 27, 2024 —, launch infrastructure destroyed, tunnels put out of commission. The precision arsenal that Iran had patiently built up in Lebanon since 2006 was partially neutralized. For Israel, it is a significant military victory.

But a politico-military movement like Hezbollah does not collapse along with its arsenals. The organization is deeply rooted in the Shiite society of southern Lebanon. It provides social services, runs hospitals, maintains mutual aid networks that extend beyond its military function. Its ideology — armed resistance against Israel as a religious and political duty — remains powerful for its base. Militarily weakened, Hezbollah retains a political and communal legitimacy that no air strike can destroy.

The reconstruction of military capacity: the most likely scenario

History teaches that Hezbollah rebuilds after every confrontation with Israel. After 2006, the organization multiplied its arsenal tenfold in under fifteen years through Iranian support. The question is therefore not whether Hezbollah will seek to rebuild — that is a given — but whether the ceasefire conditions can slow this process enough to create a lasting diplomatic window.

UN Security Council Resolution 1701 of 2006 provided for the deployment of UNIFIL and a separation zone in southern Lebanon. Its compliance has been partial at best. The Lucerne agreement of 2025 provides for more robust supervision mechanisms — but their effectiveness will depend on the political will of international guarantors to enforce them, even when that creates tensions with Israel or Iran.

Iran and Lebanon: a relationship of mutual dependency

Tehran as architect and financier of Hezbollah

The relationship between Tehran and Hezbollah is one of the most enduring and structurally defining alliances in the contemporary Middle East. Since Hezbollah's founding in 1982 with the help of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards, Tehran has provided financing, weapons, training, and strategic direction. Hezbollah is both an Iranian proxy — first line of deterrence against Israel — and a regional actor with its own Lebanese interests.

Economic sanctions against Iran have reduced but not eliminated this financing capacity. Smuggling routes, informal financial transfer networks, revenues from diverse economic activities in Lebanon and elsewhere — Hezbollah has developed funding sources that partially emancipate it from Tehran. The nuclear negotiation currently underway between Iran and the United States adds another variable: if a nuclear deal unfreezes Iranian assets, some of those resources could fuel Hezbollah's rebuilding.

Lebanon as a failed state: the breeding ground of Hezbollah's persistence

The persistence of Hezbollah as a major political and military force is inseparable from the failure of the Lebanese state. A functioning state — one that delivers basic public services, has an army capable of controlling its territory, and offers economic prospects to its population — would have no need of Hezbollah as a parallel social protection network. The collapse of the Lebanese economy since 2019, the systemic corruption that paralyzed reforms, the Beirut port explosion with no judicial accountability — all of this reinforced Hezbollah's position as a "state within a state."

The reconstruction of Lebanon is therefore inseparable from the question of Hezbollah. Without a capable and legitimate Lebanese state, Hezbollah will remain the substitute service provider for the Shiite community. International aid for Lebanon's reconstruction cannot therefore be conditioned solely on agreements with Israel — it must also fund rebuilding the capacity of the Lebanese state, a necessary (though not sufficient) condition for Hezbollah's progressive withdrawal from its para-state functions.

Prospects for regional stability: scenarios and probabilities

The optimistic scenario: an agreement that holds and strengthens

In the best-case scenario, the Lucerne agreement of November 2024 withstands the pressures and creates a positive dynamic. Hezbollah uses the truce to consolidate its political position in Lebanon rather than to rearm. Israel maintains its positions but does not escalate. Iran, absorbed by its own economic difficulties and nuclear negotiations, temporarily reduces its support for rearmament. A reinforced UNIFIL maintains credible surveillance of the separation zone.

In this scenario, credible Lebanese parliamentary elections can take place, produce a capable governing coalition, and allow for the start of international reconstruction. This is not a peace scenario — it is a stable tension management scenario. But after decades of war and instability, even stable tension management would represent considerable progress for the populations concerned.

The pessimistic scenario: a spiral toward new conflagration

In the pessimistic scenario, ceasefire violations accumulate — an Israeli strike on a perceived threat, a Hezbollah drone or missile response, an uncontrolled escalation. A partially re-armed Iran following a partial nuclear deal uses the diplomatic window to strengthen Hezbollah's capabilities ahead of a new confrontation. Lebanon, unable to form a stable government, remains paralyzed while armed actors reinforce their positions.

This pessimistic scenario is not the most probable in the short term — the costs of the recent war are still too fresh in the memories of all parties. But it becomes increasingly probable as time passes without real political progress. Ceasefires without a political horizon degenerate into chronic low-intensity warfare, then into periodic explosions. Lebanon's history is unfortunately well documented on this point.

Conclusion: Between illusion and realism, choose the truth

The June 22 agreement is a step, not a solution

The Lucerne agreement of June 22, 2026 represents a real diplomatic step. The establishment of a deconfliction cell, the commitment of Iran and the United States to work toward a ceasefire in Lebanon, the creation of a high-level political supervision mechanism: these elements are positive and must not be minimized. Diplomacy is better than the absence of diplomacy.

But presenting this agreement as a lasting peace in Lebanon would be a deception. As long as Hezbollah is not disarmed and integrated into the legitimate Lebanese security architecture, as long as Iran maintains its weapons pipelines to its Lebanese proxy, as long as Israel maintains its doctrine of preventive strikes without verifiable diplomatic counterparts, peace in Lebanon will remain what it has always been: fragile, conditional, and provisional. Telling the truth about this fragility is the prerequisite for any real progress.

By Maxime Marquette, columnist

Columnist's transparency note

My positioning and its limits

I am not a Middle East specialist nor an expert in Hezbollah's internal workings or Iranian domestic politics. This column draws on verifiable public sources and analyses produced by institutions such as CNBC, The Guardian, and diplomatic sources cited in official reports. I may be wrong about the internal Lebanese and Iranian dynamics. That is a limit I acknowledge.

What this column does not claim

This column does not claim to predict the outcome of the American-Iranian negotiations nor the military evolution in Lebanon. It seeks to name the structural limits of a diplomatic agreement when facing non-state actors and complex regional dynamics. The vulnerability of my analysis to future events is part of honest journalistic practice.

Sources

Primary sources

CNBC — U.S., Iran agree on roadmap for final deal and plan to end military hostilities in Lebanon — June 22, 2026

The Guardian — Iran-US talks progress: Pakistan, Qatar, Lebanon, Israel — June 22, 2026

Asharq Al-Awsat — Iran deal framework details — 2026

Secondary sources

Euronews — Newsletter: Temperatures rise over sanctions against Russia — June 26, 2026

UNA-UK — Briefing on recognition of Palestine — 2025

Yonhap News — Trump vows to play role in advancing Korean Peninsula issues — June 17, 2026

Foreign Policy — Middle East regional analyses 2026